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= Habit = From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search For other uses, see Habit (disambiguation).

A habit (or wont as a humorous and formal term) is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously.

The American Journal of Psychology (1903) defined a "habit, from the standpoint of psychology, [as] a more or less fixed way of thinking, willing, or feeling acquired through previous repetition of a mental experience." Habitual behavior often goes unnoticed in persons exhibiting it, because a person does not need to engage in self-analysis when undertaking routine tasks. Habits are sometimes compulsory. A 2002 daily experience study by habit researcher Wendy Wood and her colleagues found that approximately 43% of daily behaviors are performed out of habit. New behaviours can become automatic through the process of habit formation. Old habits are hard to break and new habits are hard to form because the behavioural patterns which humans repeat become imprinted in neural pathways, but it is possible to form new habits through repetition.

When behaviors are repeated in a consistent context, there is an incremental increase in the link between the context and the action. This increases the automaticity of the behavior in that context. Features of an automatic behavior are all or some of: efficiency; lack of awareness; unintentionality; and uncontrollability.

History
The word habit is pulled from the Latin words habere, which means "have, consist of," and habitus, which means "condition, or state of being." It also is derived from the French word habit (pronounced \ah-bee\), which means clothes. In the 13th century, the word habit first just referred clothing. The meaning than progressed to the more common use of the word, which is "acquired mode of behavior."

In 1890, William James, a pioneering philospher and psychologist, addressed the subject of habit in his book, The Principles of Psychology. James viewed habit as natural tendency in order to navigate life. To him, "living creatures...are bundles of habits" and those habits that have "an innate tendency are called instincts." James also explains how habits can govern our livess. He states, "Any sequence of mental action which has been frequently repeated tends to perpetuate itself; so that we find ourselves automatically prompted to think, feel, or do what we have been before accustomed to think, feel, or do, under liike circumstances, without any consciously formed purpose, or anticipated of result.

Formation
Habit formation is the process by which a behavior, through regular repetition, becomes automatic or habitual. This is modeled as an increase in automaticity with the number of repetitions up to an asymptote. This process of habit formation can be slow. Lally et al. (2010) found the average time for participants to reach the asymptote of automaticity was 66 days with a range of 18–254 days.

There are three main components to habit formation: the context cue, behavioral repetition, and the reward.The context cue can be a prior action, time of day, location, or anything that triggers the habitual behavior. This could be anything that one's mind associates with that habit, and one will automatically let a habit come to the surface. The behavior is the actual habit that one exhibits, and the reward, such as a positive feeling, therefore continues the "habit loop". A habit may initially be triggered by a goal, but over time that goal becomes less necessary and the habit becomes more automatic. Intermittent or uncertain rewards have been found to be particularly effective in promoting habit learning.

A variety of digital tools, online or mobile apps, have been introduced that are designed to support habit formation. For example, Habitica is a system that uses gamification, implementing strategies found in video games to real-life tasks by adding rewards such as experience and gold. However, a review of such tools suggests most are poorly designed with respect to theory and fail to support the development of automaticity.

Shopping habits are particularly vulnerable to change at "major life moments" like graduation, marriage, the birth of the first child, moving to a new home, and divorce. Some stores use purchase data to try to detect these events and take advantage of the marketing opportunity.

Some habits are known as "keystone habits," and these influence the formation of other habits. For example, identifying as the type of person who takes care of their body and is in the habit of exercising regularly, can also influence eating better and using credit cards less. In business, safety can be a keystone habit that influences other habits that result in greater productivity.

A recent study by Adriaanse et al. (2014) found that habits mediate the relationship between self-control and unhealthy snack consumption. The results of the study empirically demonstrate that high-self control may influence the formation of habits and in turn affect behavior.

Creativity:

Similarly, social psychologists, organizational scientists, and management scientists (who conduct extensive research on the factors that influence creativity and innovation in teams and organizations) have developed integrative theoretical models that emphasize the roles of team composition, team processes, and organizational culture. These theoretical models also emphasize the mutually reinforcing relationships between them in promoting innovation.

Problem analysis[ edit] (Problem solving vs. decision-making)
It is important to differentiate between problem solving, or problem analysis, and decision-making. Problem solving is the process of investigating the given information and finding all possible solutions through invention or discovery. Traditionally, it is argued that problem solving is a step towards decision making,so that the information gatthered in that process may be used towards decision-making.[page needed]


 * Characteristics of problem solving


 * Problems are merely deviations from performance standards
 * Problems must be precisely identified and described
 * Problems are caused by a change from a distinctive feature
 * Something can always be used to distinguish between what has and hasn't been affected by a cause
 * Causes of problems can be deduced from relevant changes found in analyzing the problem
 * Most likely cause of a problem is the one that exactly explains all the facts, while having the fewest (or weakest) assumptions (Occam's razor).


 * Characteristics of decision-making


 * Objectives must first be established
 * Objectives must be classified and placed in order of importance
 * Alternative actions must be developed
 * The alternatives must be evaluated against all the objectives
 * The alternative that is able to achieve all the objectives is the tentative decision
 * The tentative decision is evaluated for more possible consequences
 * The decisive actions are taken, and additional actions are taken to prevent any adverse consequences from becoming problems and starting both systems (problem analysis and decision-making) all over again
 * There are steps that are generally followed that result in a decision model that can be used to determine an optimal production plan
 * In a situation featuring conflict, role-playing may be helpful for predicting decisions to be made by involved parties

Analysis paralysis[ edit]
Main article: Analysis paralysis

When a group or individual is unable to make it through the problem-solving step on the way to making a decision, they could be experiencing analysis paralysis. Analysis paralysis is the state that a person enters where they are unable to make a decision, in effect paralyzing the outcome.(3a) Some of the main causes for analysis paralysis is the overwhelming flood of incoming data or the tendency to overanalyze the situation at hand. (1a) According to Lon Roberts, there are three different types of analysis paralysis. (10a)

·       The first is analysis process paralysis. This type of paralysis is often spoken of as a cyclical process. One is unable to make a decision because they get stuck go over the information again and again for fear of making the wrong decision.

·       The second is decision precision paralysis. This paralysis is cyclical, just like the first one, but instead of going over the same information, the decision-maker will find new questions and information from their analysis and that will lead them to explore into further possibilities rather than making a decision.

·       The third is risk uncertainty paralysis. This paralysis occurs when the decision-maker wants to eliminate any uncertainty but the examination of provided information is unable to get rid of all uncertainty.

Extinction by Instinct
On the opposite side of analysis paralysis is the phenomenon called extinction by instinct. Extinction by instinct is the state that a person is in when they make careless decisions without detailed planning or thorough systematic processes. (4a) Extinction by instinct can possibly be fixed by implementing a structural system, like checks and balances. into a group or one’s life. Analysis paralysis is the exact opposite where a group’s schedule could be saturated by too much of a structural checks and balance system. (4a)

Extinction by instinct in a group setting
Groupthink is another occurrence that falls under the idea of extinction by instinct. According to Irving L. Janis, groupthink is when members in a group become more involved in the “value of the group (and their being part of it) higher than anything else”; thus, creating a habit of making decisions quickly and unanimously. In other words, a group stuck in groupthink are participating in the phenomenon of extinction by instinct. (2a)

Information overload[ edit]
Main article: Information overload

Information overload is "a gap between the volume of information and the tools we have to assimilate" it. Information used in decision making is to reduce or eliminate uncertainty. Excessive information affects problem processing and tasking, which affects decision-making. Psychologist George Armitage Miller suggests that humans’ decision making becomes inhibited because human brains can only hold a limited amount of information. (5a) Other names for information overload are information anxiety, information explosion, infobesity, and infoxication. (6,7,8,9a) Crystal C. Hall and colleagues described an "illusion of knowledge", which means that as individuals encounter too much knowledge it can interfere with their ability to make rational decisions.

Decision Fatigue
Decision fatigue is when a sizable amount of decision-making leads to a decline in decision-making skills. People who make decisions in an extended period of time begin to lose mental energy needed to analyze all possible solutions. It is speculated that decision fatigue only happens to those who believe willpower has a limited capacity. (11a) Impulsive decision-making or decision avoidance are two possible paths that extend from decision fatigue. Impulse decisions are made more often when a person is tired of analysis situations or solutions; the solution they make is to act and not think. (11a) Decision avoidance is when a person evades the situation entirely by not ever making a decision. Decision avoidance is different from analysis paralysis because this sensation is about avoiding the situation entirely, while analysis paralysis is continually looking at the decisions to be made but still unable to make a choice. (12a)

In children, adolescents, and adults[ edit]
Children

It has been found that, unlike adults, children are less likely to have research strategy behaviors. One such behavior is adaptive decision-making, which is described as funneling and then analyzing the more promising information provided if the number of options to choose from increases. Adaptive decision-making behavior is somewhat present for children, ages 11-12 and older, but decreases in presence the younger they are. (2b) The reason children aren’t as fluid in their decision making is because they lack the inability to weigh in the cost and effort needed to gather information in the decision-making process. Some possibilities that explain this inability is knowledge deficits and lack of utilization skills. Children lack the metacognitive knowledge necessary to know when to use any strategies they do possess to change their approach to decision-making. (2b)

When it comes to the idea of fairness in decision making, children and adults differ much less. Children are able to understand the concept of fairness decision making from an early age. Toddlers and infants, ranging from 9-21 months, understand basic principles equality. The only difference found is that more complex principles of fairness in decision making such as contextual and intentional information don’t come until later on as children get older. (1b)

Adolescents

During their adolescent years, teens are known for their high-risk behaviors and rash decisions. Recent research[citation needed] has shown that there are differences in cognitive processes between adolescents and adults during decision-making. Researchers have concluded that differences in decision-making are not due to a lack of logic or reasoning, but more due to the immaturity of psychosocial capacities that influence decision-making. Examples of their undeveloped capacities which influence decision-making would be impulse control, emotion regulation, delayed gratification and resistance to peer pressure. In the past, researchers have thought that adolescent behavior was simply due to incompetency regarding decision-making. Currently, researchers have concluded that adults and adolescents are both competent decision-makers, not just adults. However, adolescents' competent decision-making skills decrease when psychosocial capacities become present.

Recent research[citation needed] has shown that risk-taking behaviors in adolescents may be the product of interactions between the socioemotional brain network and its cognitive-control network. The socioemotional part of the brain processes social and emotional stimuli and has been shown to be important in reward processing. The cognitive-control network assists in planning and self-regulation. Both of these sections of the brain change over the course of puberty. However, the socioemotional network changes quickly and abruptly, while the cognitive-control network changes more gradually. Because of this difference in change, the cognitive-control network, which usually regulates the socioemotional network, struggles to control the socioemotional network when psychosocial capacities are present.[clarification needed]

When adolescents are exposed to social and emotional stimuli, their socioemotional network is activated as well as areas of the brain involved in reward processing. Because teens often gain a sense of reward from risk-taking behaviors, their repetition becomes ever more probable due to the reward experienced. In this, the process mirrors addiction. Teens can become addicted to risky behavior because they are in a high state of arousal and are rewarded for it not only by their own internal functions but also by their peers around them.

A recent study suggests that adolescents have difficulties adequately adjusting beliefs in response to bad news (such as reading that smoking poses a greater risk to health than they thought), but do not differ from adults in their ability to alter beliefs in response to good news. This creates biased beliefs, which may lead to greater risk taking.

Adults

Adults are generally better able to control their risk-taking because their cognitive-control system has matured enough to the point where it can control the socioemotional network, even in the context of high arousal or when psychosocial capacities are present. Also, adults are less likely to find themselves in situations that push them to do risky things. For example, teens are more likely to be around peers who peer pressure them into doing things, while adults are not as exposed to this sort of social setting.